sea-mist has lifted and is pouring inland.

And now men with a hose have come and are sluicing out the streets.

Behold now night is dead.

What memories, what fancies throng one's mind! A night but just now
gathered out of London by the horrific hand of Time. A million common
artificial things all cloaked for a while in mystery, like beggars robed
in purple, and seated on dread thrones. Four million people asleep,
dreaming perhaps. What worlds have they gone into? Whom have they met? But
my thoughts are far off with Bethmoora in her loneliness, whose gates
swing to and fro. To and fro they swing, and creak and creak in the wind,
but no one hears them. They are of green copper, very lovely, but no one
sees them now. The desert wind pours sand into their hinges, no watchman
comes to ease them. No guard goes round Bethmoora's battlements, no enemy
assails them. There are no lights in her houses, no footfall on her
streets, she stands there dead and lonely beyond the Hills of Hap, and I
would see Bethmoora once again, but dare not.

It is many a year, they tell me, since Bethmoora became desolate.

Her desolation is spoken of in taverns where sailors meet, and certain
travellers have told me of it.

I had hoped to see Bethmoora once again. It is many a year ago, they say,
when the vintage was last gathered in from the vineyards that I knew,
where it is all desert now. It was a radiant day, and the people of the
city were dancing by the vineyards, while here and there one played upon
the kalipac. The purple flowering shrubs were all in bloom, and the snow